Contributor: John Swain

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The sea nor’easter reveled in its madness wrath,
I held a black scallop
as my leather boots sank into the changing dune
where the wind blew
to unearth the carapace of a shark-bitten turtle.
The tower of a broken ship rusts above the waves
gathered in a grey siphon to create a separate island
of common reeds swaying.
As the blue dark began to swallow,
I watched the tallest lighthouse candle
a mausoleum hall.
Salt, grit on my skin, sweat like a marooned horse
washed and in love
as the water calms
before the fog roll white with the roosting gulls,
I pledged my joining silence to tremble within.


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John Swain lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Red Paint Hill published his first collection, Ring the Sycamore Sky.